Improvement in lightning-rods



H. H. HOMAN.

Lightning Rod.

No. 9,260. PatentedSept. 14. 1852.

v UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HERMAN H. HOIWIAN, OF CINCINNATI, OHIO.

IMPROVEMENT IN LIGHTNING-RODS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent NO. 9,260, dated September 14, 1852.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, HERMAN H. HOMAN, of Cincinnati, Hamilton county, Ohio, have invented new and useful Improvements in the Points of Lighting-Rods; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making part of this specification.

The object of my invention is the production of a self-renewing lighting-rod point of the greatest possible efficiency of operation and simplicity of construction.

In the annexed drawings a point on my improved construction is represented by two views taken at right angles to each other.

The same letters refer to like parts in both views.

I construct my point in two, three, or more sections, a Z) 0, one above another, each section being of metal of greater fusibility than the one below it, and the sections being united obliquely together by solder or brazing whose fusibility is somewhat greater than that immediately above it. A shock of lightning capable of destroying an ordinary point will simply melt oft the upper section of this, which being united by solder of still greater fusibility slips readily off and leaves the point of the next section entire and free from enlargement, either by its own partial fusion or by any button or other lodgment of the melted portion, which is apt to occur more or less with a point formed ofsuccessive sheathings of metal which is moreover of much less easy construction than mine.

Having thus fully described the nature of my improvem entsin lightning-rod points, what I claim therein as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

I. The formation of the point of alightningrod of successive sections of different metals, each being of greater fusibility than the one below it, and having obliqnejunctions so that an overcharge of the electric fluid simply melts off the upper section without enlargement of the point below, either by its own partial fusion or by the lodgment of the upper metal upon it.

2. Uniting the successive sections of an 0bliquely-sectional lightning-rod point by solder or brazing, which is at each joint fusible at a lower temperature than the section immediately above it, so that the melting of the point shall remove the entire uppermost section, and thus more certainly prevent the lodgment of any portion of the melted section upon the point thus exposed.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand before two subscribing witnesses.

GEo. H. KNIGHT. E. M. BRADLEY. 

